


swim in my blood when it's warm

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Incest, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's seeing everything clearly now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	swim in my blood when it's warm

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to luzdeestrellas for betaing and to angelgazing and amberlynne for handholding. Vague spoilers through 5.04, to be safe.

A snapshot: Dean, tall and square against the backdrop of a sky so deep and blue it seems like it can't be real. Dean looks larger than life, like a hero on a movie screen, like someone Sam's never seen before, though he's sat next to him in the car for a thousand thousand hours, fallen asleep and woken up in the same room his whole life, breathed the same air since forever.

Sam sits up slowly, the ground hard beneath him, and closes his eyes when the motion makes him dizzy. The image of Dean is burned into the insides of his eyelids. He knows he'll remember it for the rest of his life, though the way things are going, that might not be very long at all.

He blinks the sun out of his eyes, pushes his hair off his forehead. There's blood on his hand when he lowers it. Huh. He doesn't remember that. He blinks again, squints up at Dean, who looks like he's ready to take on the legions of hell and the hosts of heaven all at once. The hilt of Ruby's knife is clenched tight in his hand, the blade still dripping red, the color bold against the faded blue of his jeans.

Sam feels a pang of something low in his belly, need slithering like a snake in his veins. His mouth goes dry. It's all too much. He has to look away.

Eyes closed, he can still see Dean, solid and strong against the cerulean sky, limned by sunlight like a halo, and the slow drip of red, red blood down the sharp blade of the knife.

"What happened?" His voice is rusty and dry. He opens his eyes just enough to see past his lashes.

Dean looks down at him, offers a hand, but Sam's afraid if he takes it, he might just burn away to ash. He levers himself up off the ground, which sways dangerously beneath him. Dean grabs his elbow, warmth Sam can feel through three layers of clothing, and the horizon tilts back into its rightful place.

"Demons." Dean shows him the knife, his mouth twisting in irritation. "Came outta nowhere. You okay?"

Sam closes his eyes, takes inventory. There's a gash on his forehead, his ass hurts from hitting the ground hard, and he's still a little woozy from being knocked out, but there doesn't seem to be any serious damage. "Yeah, I think so. You?"

Dean gives him a smug grin. "I'm good."

Sam's going to blame the shiver that runs through him on the head wound.

They dig a shallow pit, set the bodies on fire, the smell so familiar it doesn't even make his stomach turn anymore. They don't usually do this in daylight; the bright sun makes everything stand out in sharp relief--the flames burn bright, black smoke rising in a column like exorcised demons--and Sam sees everything clearly now. He can count every freckle and drop of sweat on Dean's face and forearms. It aches to look at him too long.

Sam doesn't need a camera to capture the image. He sees it every time he closes his eyes.

*

A scent: the warm copper tang of blood, overpowering the usual fragrance of smoke and sweat and gun oil that clings to their clothes. Sam swallows hard against the swelling ache of hunger that rises in his throat. It sneaks up on him, startles him sometimes, how much he misses the heat of power thrumming in his veins. He doesn't know if Ruby told the truth at the end, after all the lies, if it was never the blood at all. He knows it doesn't matter--he'd made the choices he'd made, and he has to live with them. Or die with them, if he and Dean can't stop the world from ending.

He frowns at the jeans, damp and stiff with blood and sweat and dirt, and springs for a little bottle of off-brand non-chlorine bleach out of the vending machine in the corner of the laundromat, even though he knows it won't do much good.

The rest of their clothes smell like smoke. They almost always smell like smoke. Sam thinks that's why Dean never picked up the habit, even when it would have gone with the bad boy image he'd cultivated in high school. Sam remembers the way the smell clung to his clothes for days after Jess died, how it lodged in his throat and nose and stung his eyes, the way it rose from his hair in the steam of the shower, after he'd thought it was gone for good. He thought he'd never be able to smell anything else.

He loads the machine with the jeans and other darks and he's wrinkling his nose at the funky reek rising from the pile of underwear when Dean comes in. He smells clean for once, and familiar--he smells of hair gel and Old Spice deodorant, and motor oil (he stopped wearing cologne after an unspecified but traumatic incident with Drakkar Noir in the ninth grade). He's been working on the car again, one job Sam was glad to hand over to him when he came back. He's got oil under his fingernails; he'll spend the next half hour in the bathroom trying to wash it off, and the next three days complaining when it doesn't go away. Sam's pretty sure he doesn't mean it.

Dean grimaces at the dingy grey and rusty black of their t-shirts and boxer-briefs. "Time for new underwear?" he says, offering Sam a Twix.

Sam finishes measuring out the soap, starts the machine, and takes the candy. "You think?"

Dean shrugs, inured to his sarcasm. "There's a Walmart in town."

Sam rips open the candy and takes a bite, the chocolate and caramel warm and gooey in his mouth. When he's done chewing, he says, "Jess's mom used to joke about always wearing clean underwear, in case she got into an accident. She didn't want to be embarrassed." He'd always thought it was one of those normal people things that he just didn't get. Dad had been more concerned with his sons being appropriately dressed for getting the hell out of dodge at any given moment. Otherwise, Sam's sure Dean would spend most of his time naked. And he can't think about that.

"Or she was hoping for hot EMTs."

Sam thinks of Mrs. Moore, who in the right light could have passed for Jess's sister instead of her mother, and smiles. "Maybe."

"I don't think Michael really cares about the state of my tighty-whiteys. Lucifer, on the other hand..." Dean trails off, and Sam knows he's thinking about the future Zachariah showed him, the joke not funny even with Dean's low standards and penchant for gallows humor.

"So, laundry and then Walmart," Sam says before Dean can get too lost in his own head. "We do what we do, the same as any other night."

"What's that?" Dean asks, eyes wide with fake innocence, feeding him the line.

Sam snorts a laugh. "You realize that makes you Pinky, right?"

Dean opens his mouth and Sam knows his brother well enough to know that he's about to say something ridiculously dirty and wrong. Sam shoves the remaining Twix into Dean's mouth. Dean's breath is warm and humid on Sam's skin, Dean's lips soft and dry and slightly chapped against his fingers. Dean fakes biting him, and heat sparks through Sam's body; he jerks away like he's been shocked.

Dean laughs, spraying crumbs everywhere, and Sam scowls back like nothing weird happened. He's had a lot of experience with that.

*

A song: the familiar, relentless beat of "Kashmir," building slow and inexorable beneath Robert Plant's supple voice, Dean's hands keeping time on the steering wheel.

Sam remembers Dean trying to explain sex to him. He'd been twelve, simultaneously fascinated and repelled; he'd jerked off as often as he could and wondered if he was some sort of freak until Dean reassured him it was normal. And then Dean had started waxing poetic about the weight of Linda McNamara's tits in his hands, the slick tight heat of her pussy, with the heavy beat of "Kashmir" on the radio the only seduction technique he'd needed. For years, Sam couldn't hear the song without getting hard, the memory of that conversation fresh in his mind--the dirty smile on Dean's face, the awed look in his eyes he'd tried to hide, the way his pink tongue had flicked out and licked his lower lip like he could still taste the last girl he'd been with.

The first time Sam slept with Jess, he hung a sock on the door and cued up "Kashmir" on the crappy secondhand stereo in his dorm room. Later, after they'd been together a few months, she'd laughed and called him a cliché.

"Worked, didn't it?" he'd answered hauling her into his arms and blowing a raspberry against her neck. "Things become clichés for a reason."

She'd wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. "Sure, but it wasn't the cliché I was expecting from you."

He couldn't tell her it was because the cliché was Dean's.

Dean flashes Sam a smug, wicked grin as he turns the volume up.

Sam feels a low flutter in his belly and he shifts in his seat, trying to get himself under control. It's not like he hasn't been easy for Dean his whole life, and spent his whole life fighting it. He doesn't know what it is Dean's trying to tempt him into, but this time, he thinks seriously about giving in.

*

A touch: the knock of Dean's knees against his as they jam into the small booth the waitress leads them to. Sam waits for Dean to move, but of course, he doesn't. He can feel the heat of Dean's body through two pairs of jeans, the bones of his shins, the jut of his knees. He thinks about moving, but he's the one who needs the extra leg room, so Dean can just suck it up. Sam settles more firmly into his seat. Dean kicks his ankle, which hurts, because Dean's boots have steel toes, and he gives Sam a grin like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Sam's own mouth turns down, even though he kind of wants to laugh, and he returns the kick. They open their menus and pretend to read them while they jostle under the table like they did when they were kids and they'd spent too long cooped up in a car together.

They used to be all over each other, pillow fights and wrestling and sparring matches, a constant steady stream of Dean's hand on his neck, his back, his forehead when he was sick. Dean was always up for a round of "I'm not touching you," getting right up into Sam's space, close enough that they were breathing the same air. But since they reunited--Sam shakes his head, since before that, since Dean got back from hell--they haven't touched at all. Sam knows part of it is because no matter what he says, Dean still doesn't trust him, and part of it is because he'd flinched when Dean pulled out that knife, still worried on some level that Dean was going to kill him for being a monster, for being Lucifer's vessel, the voicemail they never talk about lingering in the back of his mind like a ghost that can't be laid to rest with anything as simple as a salt and burn.

Two days later, they're digging up a grave in Albuquerque and Sam offers Dean a hand up out of it. Dean's hand is dirty, sweaty, and callused, but Sam feels a shock of connection shudder through him. He holds on a little too long, and Dean meets his gaze, a question in his eyes, but he doesn't shake him off and doesn't tease him about it.

When they're done, they walk back to the car shoulder to shoulder, Dean's dirty, sweaty arm brushing Sam's every other step.

"Good work," Dean says, the way Dad used to when Sam first started hunting with them and had done something right.

Sam glances at him, surprised. "Thanks."

"Look," Dean says, opening the trunk and dropping his gear in. Sam lays his gear in beside Dean's and waits, leaning one hip against the car and crossing his arms over his chest. "We both said some things--I know I promised you a beatdown--and shit's been fucked up since, I don't know, since forever maybe, but," he shrugs a shoulder and looks down at his hands, "I'm glad you're back, man." He looks up, meets Sam's gaze squarely, and before Sam can say anything in response, he hooks an arm around Sam's neck and pushes Sam's face into his sweaty armpit.

Sam's voice is muffled and he gets a mouthful of dirty cotton when he says, "Dean!" He can feel Dean's body shake with laughter, and something inside him eases. Sam shoves Dean away, laughing himself, unwilling to admit that maybe occasionally he misses being small enough to be manhandled by Dean.

"Me, too," he says once he's had a few breaths of fresh air.

Dean's smile is brighter than the full moon overhead.

In the morning, Sam takes the keys (Dean growls but doesn't actually ask for them back) and once they're out on the road, he drapes an arm along the back of the seat, fingers curling naturally into the collar of Dean's shirt, brushing through his neatly trimmed hair. Dean shivers and twitches, but he doesn't pull away. He turns his head to look out the window and lets Sam stroke the nape of his neck, long finger ghosting over the pulse, feeling the way it jumps and then settles at Sam's touch.

The floodgates are open now and Sam can't get enough--he rests an elbow on Dean's shoulder when they're at the bar, puts a hand on Dean's back when he leans in to read the latest ominous email from Jo, slaps the back of Dean's head when he uses up all the hot water in their crappy motel room in Kalamazoo.

They're in the car again--they're always in the car, always trying to stay one step ahead and always somehow ten steps behind--and arguing over all the terrible ideas they've had about how to stop the apocalypse.

"It's a trap, Sam. How is it that this guy has some magical way to kill the devil that no one's ever heard of? Even Bobby doesn't know the guy."

"But Rufus vouched for him, and Rufus might be a cranky old bastard, but I don't think he wants the world to end any more than we do."

"Okay," Dean says, "but this plan is stupid."

"So's your face."

"Oh, real mature, Sam."

"So's your face." Sam feels entitled, after years of being on the receiving end.

This time, Dean slaps the back of his head, and Sam can't help but laugh. Dean's hand lands on his knee and squeezes, reassuring and tickling all at once, and Sam squirms, shocked at the sudden bolt of happiness shooting through him.

Of course, it _is_ a trap, but they get out of it by the skin of their teeth (with some barely in the nick of time angelic intervention), and Dean won't let Sam hear the end of it. They're both too wired to sleep afterwards, so they sit on the bed (Dean's, because Sam doesn't want to sleep on the detritus of their feast of pizza and microwave popcorn) in the motel room, drinking beer and watching the Mötley Crüe Behind the Music for the four hundred and fiftieth time.

"We have to explore all the options, Dean." Dean's voice is high and breathless and sounds nothing like Sam. That doesn't seem to stop him from thinking he's hilarious. "The world is ending, Dean, and maybe this crazy scheme will actually work. Won't you feel stupid if it turns out to be the way to stop the apocalypse and we didn't even try, Dean?" Dean punctuates his mocking monologue with pokes to Sam's shoulder, and, when he wants to emphasize his point, with fingers that dig into Sam's ribs, finding the ticklish spots.

"Dean, quit it." Sam jerks away in response and knocks over the bag of popcorn, spilling it all over the bed.

"Dude," Dean says, shoving at him. "Look what you did."

"What you made me do," Sam says, shoving back.

"Moron."

"Asshole."

"Ass_hat_." Dean grins like he's won something and shoves again, harder. Sam thumps down onto the floor, his laughter turning into groan. Dean leans over and offers a hand to help him up, and Sam yanks him down onto the floor beside him. They roll around for a couple of minutes, grappling and laughing breathlessly, until Sam finally pins Dean, his knees shoved into Dean's armpits and Dean's wrists in his hands.

"Say uncle."

Dean looks up at him, head tipped back to display the long line of his neck, dusted with freckles and stubble, and laughs. "Make me."

Sam doesn't think--later, he'll blame it on the beer or the stress of the apocalypse or maybe just on Dean's inherent _Dean-ness_\--he drags his hips down Dean's body, and leans forward to press his lips to Dean's laughing mouth. Dean's lips are warm and soft and slightly chapped, and the banked heat that lives under Sam's skin flares to life at their touch.

*

A taste: Dean's mouth is hot and wet and tastes of beer and salt and butter. Sam licks his way inside, as always taking a mile whenever Dean gives him an inch. He lets Dean's hands go so he can cup Dean's face, and Dean puts them on Sam's chest. Sam braces, ready to be pushed off and possibly punched, but Dean's fingers curl into the material of Sam's shirt, holding him close.

The kiss is hungry, desperate, sloppy--wetter than Sam would like, and Dean is more aggressive than most of the girls Sam's been with--but it still makes his whole body tingle.

He breaks the kiss, licks his way around the line of Dean's jaw, stubble rough against his tongue. Dean lets out a choked noise that's a cross between a moan and a whimper, and a thrill races through Sam at the sound of it. Dean's hands slide down to rest on Sam's waist, thumbs moving up under his t-shirt to stroke the skin of his belly, and he thrusts up with his hips. It takes Sam a second to realize that Dean's not trying to buck him off, that he's looking for friction.

Sam takes a small break from sucking a hickey onto the soft skin below the notch of Dean's jaw to look at him--eyes heavy-lidded and dark, lips red and wet, his breathing ragged and fast.

Dean's mouth curves in that smug grin again and he says, "S'okay, Sammy. You okay?"

Sam huffs a small, breathless laugh, knowing that this is as close as they'll probably ever come to talking about what they're doing. "Yeah. I'm good."

"Be better if we were in a bed." Dean's voice is hoarse, teasing, hopeful.

He has a point, but Sam is afraid to let him go, afraid that if he lets Dean up, doesn't keep him _right there_, this whole thing is going to evaporate like some kind of crazy dream.

"Sam?"

"Yeah, yeah, okay." Sam reluctantly levers himself up and adjusts his jeans, ignoring the pleased smirk on Dean's face. He's looking at the mess of popcorn and dirty napkins on Dean's bed and is totally not ready for Dean tackling him onto the other, clean bed.

They roll so Dean's on top this time, his leg wedged between Sam's thighs and pressing up, his hips already moving.

Sam thinks about saying something to slow it down, to make sure Dean's not just going along because, well, he can't think of a reason Dean would just go along with this unless he wanted it too, but Dean's more complicated than Sam ever expects.

"You think too much," Dean says, his mouth right up against Sam's ear. He sucks on Sam's earlobe, and Sam arches up, pleasure sparking through him. Dean's laugh is low and full of dirty promises. Sam realizes there's no reason to slow down--they've got no time to waste.

"Yeah," he says. It's little more than a breath, which Dean breathes in before kissing him again.

end

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Steve Miller.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Like thoughts inside a dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4206870) by [frozen_delight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozen_delight/pseuds/frozen_delight)




End file.
